‘Are they?’ said Wimsey. ‘Well, I’m not one – yet – so you needn’t mind what you say to me.’
‘It’s the same thing,’ said the lady viciously; ‘husbands and parricides, there’s not a halfpenny to choose between them. Only parricides aren’t respectable – but then, they’re easier got rid of.’
‘Oh!’ replied Wimsey, ‘but I’m not a parricide either – not Mrs Fentiman’s parricide, at any rate, I assure you. Hallo! here’s Joe. Did you get the doings, old man? You did? Good work. Now, Mrs Munns, have just a spot with us. You’ll feel all the better for it. And why shouldn’t we go into the sitting-room where it’s warmer?’
Mrs Munns complied. ‘Oh, well,’ she said, ‘here’s friends all round. But you’ll allow it all looked a bit queer, now, didn’t it? And the police this morning, asking all those questions, and emptying the dustbin all over the backyard.’
‘Whatever did they want with the dustbin?’
‘Lord knows; and that Cummins woman looking on all the time over the wall. I can tell you, I was vexed. “Why, Mrs Munns,” she said, “have you been poisoning people?” she said. “I always told you,” she said, “your cooking ’ud do for somebody one of these days.” The nasty cat.’
‘What a rotten thing to say,’ said Wimsey sympathetically. ‘Just jealousy, I expect. But what did the police find in the dustbin?’
‘Find? Them find anything? I should like to see them finding things in my dustbin. The less I see of their interfering ways the better I’m pleased. I told them so. I said, “If you want to come upsetting my dustbin,” I said, “you’ll have to come with a search-warrant,” I said. That’s the law, and they couldn’t deny it. They said Mrs Fentiman had given them leave to look, so I told them Mrs Fentiman had no leave to give them. It was my dustbin, I told them, not hers. So they went off with a flea in their ear.’
‘That’s the stuff to give ’em, Mrs Munns.’
‘Not but what I’m respectable. If the police come to me in a right and lawful manner, I’ll gladly give them any help they want. I don’t want to get into trouble, not for any number of captains. But interference with a free-born woman and no search-warrant I will not stand. And they can either come to me in a fitting way, or they can go and whistle for their bottle.’
What bottle?’ asked Wimsey quickly.
‘The bottle they were looking for in my dustbin, what the Captain put there after breakfast.’
Sheila gave a faint cry.
‘What bottle was that, Mrs Munns?’
‘One of them little tablet bottles,’ said Mrs Munns, ‘same as you have standing on the wash-hand stand, Mrs Fentiman. When I saw the Captain smashing it up in the yard with a poker—’
‘There now, Primrose,’ said Mr Munns, ‘can’t you see as Mrs Fentiman ain’t well?’
‘I’m quite all right,’ said Sheila hastily, pushing away the hair which clung damply to her forehead. ‘What was my husband doing?’
‘I saw him,’ said Mrs Munns, ‘run out into the backyard – just after your breakfast it was, because I recollect Munns was letting the officers into the house at the time. Not that I knew then who it was, for, if you’ll excuse me mentioning of it, I was in the outside lavatory, and that was how I come to see the Captain. Which ordinarily, you can’t see the dustbin from the house – my lord I should say, I suppose, if you really are one, but you meet so many bad characters nowadays that one can’t be too careful – on account of the lavatory standing out as you may say and hiding it.’
‘Just so,’ said Wimsey.
‘So when I saw the Captain breaking the bottle as I said, and throwing the bits into the dustbin, ‘Hallo!’ I said, ‘that’s funny’ and I went to see what it was and I put it in an envelope, thinking, you see, as it might be something poisonous, and the cat such a dreadful thief as he is, I never can keep him out of that dustbin. And when I came in, I found the police here. So after a bit, I found them poking about in the yard and I asked them what they were doing there. Such a mess as they’d made, you never would believe. So they showed me a little cap they’d found, same as it might be off that tablet bottle. “Did I know where the rest of it was?” they said. And I said, what business had they got with the dustbin at all. So they said—’
‘Yes, I know,’ said Wimsey. ‘I think you acted very sensibly, Mrs Munns. And what did you do with the envelope and things?’
‘I kept it,’ replied Mrs Munns, nodding her head. ‘I kept it. Because, you see, if they did return with a warrant and I’d destroyed that bottle, where should I be?
‘Quite right,’ said Wimsey, with his eye on Sheila.
‘Always keep on the right side of the law,’ agreed Mr Munns, ‘and nobody can’t interfere with you. That’s what I say. I’m a Conservative, I am. I don’t hold with these Socialist games. Have another.’
‘Not just now,’ said Wimsey. ‘And we really must not keep you and Mrs Munns up any longer. But, look here! You see, Captain Fentiman had shell-shock after the War, and he is liable to do these little odd things at times – break things up, I mean, and lose his memory and go wandering about. So Mrs Fentiman is naturally anxious about his not having turned up this evening.’
‘Aye,’ said Mr Munns, with relish, ‘I knew a fellow like that. Went clean off his rocker he did one night. Smashed up his family with a beetle – a paviour he was by profession, and that’s how he came to have a beetle in the house – pounded ’em to a jelly, he did, his wife and five little children, and went off and drownded himself in the Regent’s Canal. And, what’s more, when they got him out, he didn’t remember a word about it, not one word. So they sent him to – what’s that place? Dartmoor? no, Broadmoor, that’s it, where Ronnie True went to with his little toys and all.’
‘Shut up, you fool,’ said Wimsey savagely.
‘Haven’t you got feelings?’ demanded his wife.
Sheila got up, and made a blind effort in the direction of the door.
‘Come and lie down,’ said Wimsey, ‘you’re worn out. Hallo! there’s Robert, I expect. I left a message for him to come round as soon as he got home.’
Mr Munns went to answer the bell.
‘We’d better get her to bed as quickly as possible,’ said Wimsey to the landlady. ‘Have you got such a thing as a hot-water bottle?’
Mrs Munns departed to fetch one, and Sheila caught Wimsey’s hand.
‘Can’t you get hold of that bottle? Make her give it to you. You can. You can do anything. Make her.’
‘Better not,’ said Wimsey. ‘Look suspicious. Look here, Sheila, what is the bottle?’
‘My heart medicine. I missed it. It’s something to do with digitalin.’
‘Oh, lord,’ said Wimsey, as Robert came in.
‘It’s all pretty damnable’ said Robert.
He thumped the fire gloomily; it was burning badly, the lower bars were choked with the ashes of a day and night.
‘I’ve been having a talk with Frobisher,’ he added. ‘All this talk in the Club – and the papers – naturally he couldn’t overlook it.’
‘Was he decent?’
‘Very decent. But of course I couldn’t explain the thing. I’m sending in my papers.’
Wimsey nodded. Colonel Frobisher could scarcely overlook an attempted fraud – not after things had been said in the papers.
‘If I’d only let the old man alone. Too late now. He’d have been buried. Nobody would have asked questions.’
‘I didn’t want to interfere,’ said Wimsey, defending himself against the unspoken reproach.
‘Oh, I know. I’m not blaming you. People . . . money oughtn’t to depend on people’s deaths . . . old people, with no use for their lives . . . it’s a devil of a temptation. Look here, Wimsey, what are we to do about this woman?’
‘The Munns female?’
‘Yes. It’s the devil and all she should have got hold of the stuff. If they find out what it’s supposed to be, we shall be blackmailed for the rest of our lives.’
‘No,’ said Wimsey, ‘I’m sorry, old man, but the police have got to know about it.’
Robert sprang to his feet.
‘My God! – you wouldn’t—’
‘Sit down, Fentiman. Yes, I must. Don’t you see I must? We can’t suppress things. It always means trouble. It’s not even as though they hadn’t got their eye on us already. They’re suspicious—’
‘Yes, and why?’ burst out Robert violently. ‘Who put it into their heads? . . . For God’s sake don’t start talking about law and justice! Law and justice! You’d sell your best friend for the sake of making a sensational appearance in the witness-box, you infernal little police spy!’
‘Chuck that, Fentiman!’
‘I’ll not chuck it! You’d go and give away a man to the police – when you know perfectly well he isn’t responsible – just because you can’t afford to be mixed up in anything unpleasant. I know you. Nothing’s too dirty for you to meddle in, provided you can pose as the pious little friend of justice. You make me sick!’
‘I tried to keep out of this—’
‘You tried! – don’t be a blasted hypocrite! You get out of it now, and stay out – do you hear?’
‘Yes, but listen a moment—’
‘Get out!’ said Robert.
Wimsey stood up.
‘I know how you feel, Fentiman—’
‘Don’t stand there being righteous and forbearing, you sickening prig. For the last time – are you going to shut up, or are you going to trot round to your policeman friend and earn the thanks of a grateful country for splitting on George? Get on! Which is it to be?’
‘You won’t do George any good—’
‘Never mind that. Are you going to hold your tongue?’
‘Be reasonable, Fentiman.’
‘Reasonable be damned. Are you going to the police? No shuffling. Yes or no?’
‘Yes.’
‘You dirty little squirt,’ said Robert, striking out passionately. Wimsey’s return blow caught him neatly, on the chin and landed him in the waste-paper basket.
‘And now, look here,’ said Wimsey, standing over him, hat and stick in hand. ‘It’s no odds to me what you do or say. You think your brother murdered your grandfather. I don’t know whether he did or not. But the worst thing you can do for him is to try and destroy evidence. And the worst thing you can possibly do for his wife is to make her a party to anything of this sort. And next time you try to smash anybody’s face in, remember to cover up your chin. That’s all, I can let myself out. Good-bye.’
He went round to 12, Great Ormond Street and routed Parker out of bed.
Parker listened thoughtfully to what he had to say.
‘I wish we’d stopped Fentiman before he bolted,’ he said.
‘Yes; why didn’t you?’
‘Well, Dykes seems to have muffed it rather. I wasn’t there myself. But everything seemed all right. Fentiman looked a bit nervy, but many people do when they’re interviewed by the police – think of their hideous pasts, I suppose, and wonder what’s coming next. Or else it’s just stagefright. He stuck to the same tale he told you – said he was quite sure the old General hadn’t taken any pills or anything in the taxi – didn’t attempt to pretend he knew anything about Lady Dormer’s will. There was nothing to detain him for. He said he had to get to his job in Great Portland Street. So they let him go. Dykes sent a man to follow him up, and he went along to Walmisley-Hubbard’s all right. Dykes said, might he just have a look round the place before he went, and Mrs Fentiman said certainly. He didn’t expect to find anything, really. Just happened to step into the backyard, and saw a bit of broken glass. He then had a look round, and there was the cap of the tablet-bottle in the dustbin. Well, then, of course, he started to get interested, and was just having a hunt through the rest of it, when old mother Munns appeared and said the dustbin was her property. So they had to clear out. But Dykes oughtn’t to have let Fentiman go till they’d finished going over the place. He phoned through to Walmisley-Hubbard’s at once, and heard that Fentiman had arrived and immediately gone out with the car, to visit a prospective customer in Herts. The fellow who was supposed to be trailing Fentiman got carburettor trouble just beyond St Albans, and by the time he was fixed, he’d lost Fentiman.’
‘Did Fentiman go to the customer’s house?’
‘Not he. Disappeared completely. We shall find the car, of course – it’s only a matter of time.’
‘Yes,’ said Wimsey. His voice sounded tired and constrained.
‘This alters the look of things a bit,’ said Parker, ‘doesn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
‘What have you done to your face, old man?’
Wimsey glanced at the looking-glass, and saw that an angry red flush had come up on the cheek-bone.
‘Had a bit of a dust-up with Robert,’ he said.
‘Oh!’
Parker was aware of a thin veil of hostility, drawn between himself and the friend he valued. He knew that for the first time, Wimsey was seeing him as the police. Wimsey was ashamed and his shame made Parker ashamed too.
‘You’d better have some breakfast,’ said Parker. His voice sounded awkward to himself.
‘No – no thanks, old man. I’ll go home and get a bath and shave.’
‘Oh, right-oh!’
There was a pause.
‘Well, I’d better be going,’ said Wimsey.
‘Oh, yes,’ said Parker again. ‘Right-oh!’
‘Er – cheerio!’ said Wimsey at the door.
‘Cheerio!’ said Parker.
The bedroom-door shut. The flat-door shut. The front-door shut.
Parker pulled the telephone towards him and called up Scotland Yard.
The atmosphere of his own office was bracing to Parker when he got down there. For one thing, he was taken aside by a friend and congratulated in conspiratorial whispers.
‘Your promotion’s gone through,’ said the friend. ‘Dead certainty. The Chief’s no end pleased. Between you and me, of course. But you’ve got your Chief-Inspectorship all right. Damn good.’
Then, at 10 o’clock, the news came through that the missing Walmisley-Hubbard had turned up. It had been abandoned in a remote Hertfordshire lane. It was in perfectly good order, the gear-lever in neutral and the tank full of petrol. Evidently, Fentiman had left it and wandered away somewhere, but he could not be far off. Parker made the necessary arrangements for combing out the neighbourhood. The bustle and occupation soothed his mind. Guilty or insane or both, George Fentiman had to be found; it was just a job to be done.
The man who had been sent to interview Mrs Munns (armed this time with a warrant) returned with the fragments of the bottle and tablets. Parker duly passed these along to the police analyst. One of the detectives who was shadowing Miss Dorland rang up to announce that a young woman had come to see her, and that the two had then come out carrying a suit-case and driven away in a taxi. Maddison, the other detective, was following them. Parker said, ‘All right; stay where you are for the present,’ and considered this new development. The telephone rang again. He thought it would be Maddison, but it was Wimsey – a determinedly brisk and cheerful Wimsey this time.
‘I say, Charles, I want something.’
‘What?’
‘I want to go and see Miss Dorland.’
‘You can’t. She’s gone off somewhere. My man hasn’t reported yet.’
‘Oh! Well, never mind her. What I really want to see is her studio.’
‘Yes? Well, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t.’
‘Will they let me in?’
‘Probably not. I’ll meet you there and take you in with me. I was going out anyway. I’ve got to interview the nurse. We’ve just got hold of her.’
‘Thanks awfully. Sure you can spare the time?’
‘Yes. I’d like your opinion.’
‘I’m glad somebody wants it. I’m beginning to feel like a pelican in the wilderness.’
‘Rot! I’l
l be round in ten minutes.’
‘Of course,’ explained Parker, as he ushered Wimsey into the studio, ‘we’ve taken away all the chemicals and things. There’s not much to look at, really.’
‘Well, you can deal best with all that. It’s the books and paintings I want to look at. H’m! Books, you know, Charles, are like lobster-shells. We surround ourselves with ’em, and then we grow out of ’em and leave ’em behind, as evidences of our earlier stages of development.’
‘That’s a fact,’ said Parker. ‘I’ve got rows of schoolboy stuff at home – never touch it now, of course. And W.J. Locke – read everything he wrote, once upon a time. And Le Queux, and Conan Doyle, and all that stuff.’
‘And now you read theology. And what else?’
‘Well, I read Hardy a good bit. And when I’m not too tired I have a go at Henry James.’
‘The refined self-examinations of the infinitely-sophisticated. ’M-m. Well now. Let’s start with the shelves by the fireplace. Dorothy Richardson – Virginia Woolf – E. B. C. Jones – May Sinclair – Katherine Mansfield – the modern female writers are well represented, aren’t they? Galsworthy. Yes. No J. D. Beresford – no Wells – no Bennett. Dear me, quite a row of D. H. Lawrence. I wonder if she reads him very often?’
He pulled down Women in Love at random, and slapped the pages open and shut.
‘Not kept very well dusted, are they? But they have been read. Compton Mackenzie – Storm Jameson – yes – I see.’
‘The medical stuff is over here.’
‘Oh! – a few textbooks – first steps in chemistry. What’s that tumbled down at the back of the book-case. Louis Berman, eh? The Personal Equation. And here’s Why We Behave Like Human Beings. And Julian Huxley’s essays. A determined effort at self-education, what?’
‘Girls seem to go in for that sort of thing nowadays.’
‘Yes – hardly nice, is it? Hallo!’
‘What?’
‘Over here by the couch. This represents the latest of our lobster-shells, I fancy. Austin Freeman, Austin Freeman, Austin Freeman – bless me! she must have ordered him in wholesale. Through the Wall – that’s a good ’tec story, Charles – all about the third degree – Isabel Ostrander – three Edgar Wallaces – the girl’s been indulging in an orgy of crime!’